Plum Runner

About the Coffee

Ever Trujillo farms Finca La Esperanza in Tarqui, a small region on the west side of Huila, Colombia, sitting between Pitalito and La Plata above the Magdalena river valley. His farm sits near the top of the local mountain range at 1,900 meters elevation. The coffee is a variety called "Colombia," a hybrid developed by Colombia's national coffee research center, Cenicafé, in the late 1960s. Researchers crossed Caturra with Timor Hybrid to create a plant that could resist coffee leaf rust, a fungal disease that threatened producers across the country. It was released widely in the early 1980s and became one of the most commonly planted varieties in Colombia.

The Colombia variety grows well in full sun and at high planting densities, which contributed to heavy use of synthetic fertilizers and agrochemicals across much of the country after its release. Ever takes a different approach. His trees grow under the shade of high canopy trees, at a lower planting density, where the cooler conditions at 1,900 meters slow down the ripening process. He picks cherries at full burgundy color, floats them to remove low-density fruit, ferments for 48 hours, fully washes the coffee, then dries it on raised beds under the canopy. It is a traditional Colombian process, done carefully.

Tarqui sits tucked away enough that it rarely gets the attention of better-known Colombian coffee regions, but Phil Sebastian has been sourcing from producers here for years. The region's elevation and the care taken by growers like Ever show that the Colombia variety, when farmed with this much attention, can produce coffees with real character and a strong sense of place.

About Phil & Sebastian

Phil Robertson and Sebastian Sztabzyb co-founded Phil & Sebastian in Calgary, Canada in 2007. Phil came in with an engineering background and has put it to use in ways most roasters haven't, designing their own roasting machine and writing the software that runs everything from order fulfillment to coffee menus. Sebastian has focused his energy on the cafes and on sourcing green coffee from Central and South America. They've been working together on the business for close to 20 years.

Phil & Sebastian pay well above the industry average for their green coffee and invest directly in projects at origin. Phil travels to Africa for green coffee buying, while Sebastian handles Central and South American sourcing. Their view is that quality erodes without constant effort to maintain it, and that paying fairly and sharing knowledge with producers is part of what keeps the supply chain working at a high level. Since around 2012, they've also shifted toward sourcing from producers who use less synthetic inputs and more shade-grown, lower-density farming, which aligns with what Ever Trujillo is doing in Tarqui.

"Phil & Sebastian is a favourite of mine from my time in Calgary. My wife swore by their "Hartmann Honey" beans, and we stocked it (or, maybe "hoarded" is a better word) for as long as they sold it. It feels like a 'full circle' moment to finally have them in our rotation."

- Dean, Director of Coffee